Cerberus
by Rjalker
Summary: The 'real' sequal to Never Leave You. Post New Caprica. Kara awakens in the hospital with no memory of how or why she is there. (Rated T for swearing, overall depressive thoughts, and mentions of childhood abuse)


**Cerberus**

**Sequal to Never Leave You**

**Created on 2/23/13 3:14PM**

**Series so far:**

Never Leave You

Moment

Cerberus

Coming soon: Unending

* * *

When Kara awoke, it was with the sudden, terrifying knowledge that she wasn't where she normally woke up. The feeling of a thin blanket across her shoulders had panic bloom in her chest, making her breath catch in her throat as she tried desperately to identify her surroundings. Curling her knees even closer to her chest than they had been before and keeping her eyes closed—too afraid of what she might see if she opened them—she shifted until the blanket covered her face, enveloping her in a gentle cocoon of warmth, greatly easing the dread that had her heart racing, aimed her face toward a cool breeze, and breathed in deeply through her nose.

Almost immediately, the smell of disinfectants filled her nose, and she flinched back, curling in on herself in renewed horror so that her forehead was pressed against her knees, the familiar position allowing her to hold the wave of complete and utter panic that wanted to overwhelm her at bay.

_Okay_, she thought to herself, trying to calm her pounding heart, _I'm in the frakking hospital._ Tentatively, she moved one of her hands to her head, feeling the bandage that was wrapped around it. _Okay, so, either, something happened, and I got hurt…or…_

She quickly slammed the door down on those thoughts. She wasn't even going to contemplate the other reasons she could be in the hospital.

Okay. Okay. So something had happened. She'd hit her head. So now she was in the hospital.

The sudden realization that that meant she was lying in a _hospital bed_ sent shudders through her body, as white blinding fear tore through her, and with a terrified gasp, her eyes snapped open for the first time since she'd woke, and she kicked the blanket away from her and lunged for the edge of the bed, wires and other medical tubes disconnecting with her sudden movement.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of an alarm going off. A single flat sound.

She fell to the floor and ended up slamming her already injured shoulder against the tiles with her full weight. Biting her tongue to stop herself from crying out in pain, she pushed herself backwards until her back was pressed against the wall behind her, yanking an IV line out of her arm as she did so and tossing it away as far as she could.

Looking around wildly, she realized that she was in a curtained off area. The fact that she obviously wasn't in the open room she was used to wasn't helping in the least to calm her panicked fear.

Pulling her knees to her chest and pressing her forehead against them, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the fear that had her heart racing and he skin crawling with anxiety and dread. Her thoughts swirling back to the same thought no matter how hard she tried to avoid it, and slowly, some of the fear turned to anger.

_Why_ had they put her in the bed? He _knew_—

The sound of footsteps approaching shocked her out of her reverie and she snapped her head up, her eyes narrowed and flashing as hard as ice. A mask to cover the fear that still had a chokehold on her.

The curtain was pushed to the side only wide enough for Leoben to step through before he shut it again behind him, blocking her sight of what lay beyond her little enclosed area. He'd changed his clothes from the last time she'd seen him. She didn't recognize the black

The thought stopped her in her tracks as her mind suddenly went blank. When _had_ been the last time she'd seen him?

"How long have I been out?" She asked before he could even open his mouth. The sudden nagging suspicion that she'd missed more than a few days worth of memory had taken root in her mind, and it scared her. What had happened in the time she'd been unconscious…or worse? The two words she really wanted to ask stuck in her throat, and she couldn't bring herself to speak them, too afraid of the answer she'd receive if she did speak the words.

_Where's Kacey?_

Somewhere, deep in her gut, she knew.

She felt it.

A sense of loss so deep it seemed to have settled into her very bones.

Something horrible had happened to her little girl.

Arms wrapped around the knees she held against her chest and head lowered almost to rest on her hands, it was as though she were physically trying to shield her soul from the pain she knew was coming.

She wasn't sure she'd be able to survive it.

The alarmed expression on Leoben's face only clenched the vice about her heart tighter, and as her breath caught in her throat, she suddenly found she wasn't able to look at him anymore. She didn't want to see his face when he told her. She didn't want to know if he would be happy that she was hurt, or if he would be just as crushed as she was.

She buried her face in her arms.

Sensing more than hearing him move closer, she released her knees to clutch her head with her fingers, hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound of the words he'd not yet spoken. "_No_," She whispered desperately, her heart catching in her throat, tears stinging the backs of her eyes as sorrow rose up in her like a wave, causing her entire body to tremble, "_Please, don't, I…_"

_She didn't want to know_.

Didn't want to know what had happened to her daughter. Didn't want to know if the others had finally lost their patience, didn't want to know if they'd finally kept their promise about taking her if she didn't cooperate.

But she had been, hadn't she? Cooperating? She hadn't killed Leoben in over a week. She tried her hardest not to fight the Fours when one of them took her to the lab. But _gods damn it_, she'd ended up killing one of them and breaking the arm of another anyways. She hardly even remembered what had happened. And because those frakkers couldn't stand a little pain, he'd gotten another to kill him and resurrected. Voila. No more broken arm, and one more body for them to count against her.

A flash of phantom pain across her shoulders had her shuddering forward away from the wall. It was only when she bumped into him that she realized Leoben had crouched down in front of her. Her eyes snapped open at the contact and she flinched away automatically at the sight of his face only a foot away from hers.

He shifted away a little bit when he saw her reaction, his expression concerned, his hands raised as if to show he meant no harm. "Kara, it's okay." He said, his voice low, his alarm having apparently evaporated as soon as he set eyes on her, "No one here is going to hurt you. The Fours aren't going to touch you. They aren't here." He seemed to be almost able to read her mind, as though he could tell her thoughts had strayed to that particular model. "I promise." He said softly, slowly moving one of his hands forward to rest it on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

She tensed, and lowered her hands from her head, her shivers stilling somewhat, but didn't dare move away.

The next words that left his mouth almost stilled her heart completely.

"Kacey's fine. She's being looked after and the doctor says her head is healing very well. She won't even have to wear the bandage in a few days."

She blinked up at him, unable to comprehend what he had just said. "She…she's okay?" She asked in a shocked whisper, half afraid that he was lying. "Where-where is she?" She asked, her voice rising slightly in her desperate hope that was half panic, "Can I see her?" Her voice was shaking so badly it felt as though it were reverberating inside her, and shaking her so badly her entire being would suddenly collapse. She was sure something horrible had happened to her daughter. The suddenly relief that she was okay had her vision swimming before her eyes and her heart pounding in her head.

Leoben's face seemed to soften, and he gently moved his hand from her shoulder to cup her chin. She was so distracted by the fact that her daughter was alive that she didn't even protest or react. Suddenly weak, she the thought didn't even cross her mind that she _could_ protest. Or why she should, for that matter. A sluggishness seemed to have taken over her mind. Suddenly aware of the fact that her head felt very light, she blinked furiously, Leoben's face swimming in front of her as the world tipped slightly to the side, so that she felt like she were falling.

Hardly even aware of what she was doing, she fell forward into Leoben's embrace, her usual fear of him dissipated in the wake of the cloudiness that had enveloped her mind. Fighting the urge to fall over completely as the world began to spin, her breathing came in choked gasps.

Leoben put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's-length so he could look at her, his eyes filled with alarm. "Kara?" He asked, "Kara, what's wrong?"

She wasn't sure she'd be able to answer him even if she'd wanted to.

The alarm she'd heard earlier suddenly seemed louder than even the pounding of her heart. That single, drawn out, never ending noise. She suddenly realized what it was. A heart monitor. And it was flatlining.

Fear igniting like a spark in her chest, she couldn't help but curl closer into Leoben as she fought to escape the sound and what it meant.

Someone had died. The Fours had been experimenting on someone and now they were dead. She didn't even want to imagine what had been done to them.

The sound continued to ring out even as her vision began to grow dark around the edges. Leoben wrapped his arms around her, and seemed to be trembling himself. She could feel Leoben's heart pounding beneath her ear, and for a moment, she wondered if he, too, was afraid of what it meant. Did he even care? What was one more human dead, to him?

"Kara," He whispered, his voice growing more distant with every beat of her heart as she sank deeper and deeper into oblivion, "It's okay, that monitor's for you. You pulled it out when you moved…Everyone is okay…You're safe now…"

Eventually, his voice faded out entirely, and she was only half aware of the fact that she was being gently lowered to the ground, on her side. Distantly, she was grateful that he remembered not to lay her on her back. Her punishment for the deaths of the two Fours were still fresh.

Then his hands disappeared from her shoulders, his weight vanished from the floor beside her, and then she, herself, disappeared, sinking into the oblivion of unconsciousness with the distant ringing of the heart monitor her only companion in the stillness.

* * *

When she next awoke, she didn't panic like she had the first time. She knew where she was, if only dimly. A steady beeping filled the air, and it was with the bitter sting of disappointment that she realized she'd been hooked back up to the heart monitor. The feeling of a pillow beneath her head, and a blanket pulled up to her shoulders only reinforced the fact. Something about that sent alarm bells ringing in the back of her mind, but then the reason for it drifted away, and she couldn't remember why there was something wrong with her lying in a soft, comfortable bed. Thankfully, she was still lying on her side. Her back would have been agony.

Speaking of which…

Shifting slightly, she was confused to realize that there were what felt like bandages taped across the top of her back. Those hadn't been there before. At least, she didn't think they had…

Her head felt heavier than it did before, too. Her entire body did, for that matter. The dizziness is gone entirely, but her mind was still foggy, but in a good way. The kind of fogginess from the world of the half-awake. Not really asleep, but not really awake either. For a few moments, she wanted nothing more than to lie there forever, let her tired limbs rest and her mind wander through the fog that had overtaken it. She snuggled her face closer into the pillow before she even realized what she was doing.

Then she froze.

The realization of where she was had once again set in.

The realization of _what she was doing_ had set in.

Her heart froze in her chest, and a wave of cold washed over her. Her breath whooshed from her lung and it felt like she'd been kicked in the stomach.

Now fully aware of her surroundings, she could feel her heart racing in time with the rapid beating of the heart monitor. Pain stabbed through her head in time with both, a triple rhythm singing out the shattered melody of her life.

Someone shifted in front of her. She sucked in a sharp breath and held it, her mind unable to comprehend anything other than the terrified horror that was skyrocketing through her veins.

With senses honed from months of isolation and almost absolute silence, she could almost _sense_ the hand that suddenly moved toward her. But she couldn't move. Her limbs were leaden weights, her body as heavy as if it had been hollowed out and filled in with rocks, like the wolf from one of Leoben's stories.

The heat radiating out from the hand brushed her skin, and then it was on her shoulder, and to her complete shock, she was shaken gently.

She hadn't been expecting that.

The surprise was enough to break her out of whatever spell had taken over her. Without another moment's hesitation and not even daring to open her eyes, she threw herself backwards, her back connecting to the bars that contained the bed painfully, and hooked her fingers into claws to tear blindly at the hand that had touched her.

She didn't punch. She knew from experience that she could do permanent damage that way. And a Cylon with permanent damage was a Cylon that was going to resurrect. Besides, even if they were shallow, she knew scratches like that hurt like hell.

But she missed. Someone jerked back with an exclamation of surprise. Someone who's voice she didn't immediately recognize. She would know Leoben's voice anywhere, and the other models were just as familiar. She'd had four months to get to know them, after all.

This was someone new.

She snapped her eyes open.

And stared.

Her mind went blank.

The world fell silent as time itself seemed to stop.

A familiar face stared back at her, his brow furrowed over eyes widened in concern, his mouth soundlessly shaping her name in what was almost like slow motion.

An instant that lasted an eternity passed.

Then time sped back up as sound returned, exploding into her ears and almost deafening after the silence she'd imagined.

"Kara?" His voice, so full of concern, so exactly the way she remembered it sounding. The incessant ringing of the heart monitor suddenly as loud as a siren in her ears, speeding to match the pace of her suddenly racing heart.

Helo.

It was Helo.

They'd captured Helo.

Which meant—

—Adama had come back. With a rescue party.

And they'd failed.

And now Helo, her best friend, was going to be subjected to the same—

Those thoughts cut off abruptly as she shuddered and curled in on herself, pressing her face into the pillow, hating the feel of it beneath her skin, but hating the inarguable reality her friend created even more.

The sudden realization of why they had even let him in here with her in the first place hit her like a fist in the gut. They wanted her to know that they'd taken down Adama. That they were unstoppable. That there was no one left to save her or the rest of the doomed people out there, beyond the walls of the facility.

They wanted her to know that it _couldn't_ get any worse.

Because it was over.

"_Oh, gods_." She moaned, her voice muffled by the fabric of the pillow, the hopelessness that had filled her soul seeping into her lungs, making it hard to draw in air and causing her words to come out as a bare whisper.

Her head swam as her thoughts spun themselves into circles, spinning off into the dark recesses of her mind as she tried to make sense of what had happened, only to have them swing back to the exact same thought over and over again.

"Helo," She choked out, twisting her face toward him slightly and away from the pillow so that she could draw in a shaky breath, her chest constricting at the thought of what was to come, as she cracked one eye blurred with burning tears open to look up at him where he still stood next to her, still worried, about _her_. "I'm so sorry. I didn't—I didn't mean…"

Her voice faltered as the crushing weight of the reality of her situation once more stole the air from her lungs, and she closed her eyes again, wishing she could just disappear.

The hesitant touch of her friend's hand on her shoulder had her heart catching in her throat, but she couldn't find the energy within her to flinch away, despite that the gentle weight of his hand seemed heavy enough to crush her whole.

"Hey," He said, his voice low, "Starbuck?" She forced her eyes open to look up at him. She wished he wasn't there. With him there, she couldn't deny the truth. His eyes, full of concern and fear, stabbed her like a knife to the heart. The knife only twisted deeper when she realized that he wasn't even afraid for himself. Just her. That was Helo for you. The entire world could be falling down around your ears, and the only person he was worried about was you.

Hadn't he proved that back on Caprica?

"It's okay." He said, and somehow, despite everything, his words were enough to calm the part of her that wanted nothing more to curl up into a little ball and will the world to disappear. His next words, though, completely shattered the layer of calm she'd managed to smooth over the gaping wound in her soul. "Just try to relax. You're safe now, alright? It's all over." A shudder passed through her at his words, and she didn't catch the rest of what he said.

She'd barely managed to comprehend that she'd missed something when another voice interrupted.

"I'll get him," An Eight said from where it'd been standing behind Helo. Kara tensed, mentally kicking herself for not noticing the Cylon before. Yeah, there was something wrong with her head, but that was no frakking excuse! The fact that she didn't recognize her only heightened her tension.

The Eight was watching her, but Kara carefully kept herself from meeting it's gaze. Instead, her eyes flashed back toward Helo, her mouth struggling to form words of warning. But her voice had disappeared in the presence of the enemy, and she had to bite her lip to keep herself still and unmoving. Any move she made was likely to be seen as a threat, and she really wasn't in the mood to get blood on her hands. But she was worried about Helo. She knew he'd try to fight back to protect her. She knew he had to be angry behind measure.

She had when she'd first been captured.

But instead of anger, or fear, or even _annoyance_, she saw reflected in Helo's eyes something she didn't immediately recognize.

Then the words he'd spoken finally registered.

"_I'll tell the doctor you're awake."_

And now there was a Cylon standing only a few feet away from him, and he wasn't looking at her with anger or hatred or fear.

He was looking at her with _love_ in his eyes.

Kara stared, silent and completely unmoving, as the Eight ducked out of the curtained area she was still confined to. Kara _knew_ she was going to find one of the Fours. One of the Sixes was training to become a doctor, but she was nowhere near competent enough to deal with Kara. She was nowhere near _vicious_ enough to deal with Kara. She had to stick to poor little defenseless civilians.

She'd never been so angry before in her life. Not even when Leoben had first captured her. At least then she'd had a clear enemy to fight. The same enemy as always. But this, _this_ _was betrayal_. She'd felt it's lash too many times in her life, and she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to become immune to it.

Against the raw wounds of her imprisonment, this newest pain was unbearable.

She didn't know if this, this _imposter_ in front of her was a Cylon, or if she Fours had finally perfected their attempts at cloning like they'd always talked about. _It didn't matter_. Helo would never betray the fleet. He'd never betray _her_ by joining the Cylons. This wasn't her friend. This wasn't Helo.

But they were using her friendship with him against her, and she didn't know how they'd done it, but this imposter was here, and with his slip in his cover with the Eight, she felt all of her reasons against fighting back shatter into dust under the hammer of her rage.

Punishment be _damned_. She was _pissed!_

How _dare_ those frakking Toasters do this to her? _How dare_ they turn Helo into someone she had to fight? Someone she had to _hate_?

Helo—no, not Helo, the _imposter_—turned back to her, a small smile on his face that said he obviously thought he still had her fooled.

She proved him wrong by slamming a metal tray into his head.

With a groan of pain, the imposter-Helo toppled backward out of the chair he'd been sitting in, and fell to the ground. He started to get up again, but she leapt from the bed and hit him with the tray again, and this time, he stayed down.

Ripping out the cords that hadn't already been pulled from her body with her movement, Kara dropped the tray to the ground where it landed with a clatter just in time for the heart monitor to start flatlining again. She yanked the cord out before it could sound for more than a moment. She didn't know if that in itself would set off any alarms, but she really didn't care. She thought about smashing it too just for good measure, but decided against it when she realized she didn't have that much time before the Eight got back with whichever Four she'd gone to fetch.

Steeling herself against whatever horror scene she was about to enter, she burst past the curtains at as fast a run as she could manage with the fog still rattling around in her brain.

Her eyes locked on the quickly approaching obstacle in the form of a hospital bed occupied by an unconscious woman. Her breath caught in a gasp, and she skidded to a halt only a few inches away, her heart in her throat as fear squeezed her chest like a vice until she could hardly breathe.

Horror swept through her, and she stumbled back, her thoughts a storm of chaos as she struggled to figure out what she should do.

Should she try to save her? Her eyes roved frantically over the woman's still form, searching for any hint that it wasn't already too late to do anything for her. But she was lying still. Too still to be simply sleeping. Backing away in horror, she spun around and darted back toward her curtained area before she really even had time to realize what she was doing.

Her thoughts were lagging behind her body's instinctive reactions, and it was only after she'd passed back through the curtains and knelt down to the imposter-Helo's side that she realized that she absolutely _had_ to keep him alive if she wanted any chance of escaping what had been done to the other woman and the countless others that surely lay somewhere beyond.

Lifting it into a sitting position, she set the imposter-Helo's against the wall and quickly probed around the wound on his head. Her fingers came away red and she hastily wiped them off on the floor. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have done any serious damage to its head. Just knocked it out cold. It would live. Hopefully.

Snatching the pillow off the bed—mentally recoiling at the thought—she tore of the cloth covering it an tossed the rest away before she pressed it against the still bleeding wound. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, head turned away so that she wouldn't have to see her friend's face on an enemy, heart still pounding in her head and her entire body trembling, before the sound of a pair of unhurried footsteps broke through the semi-trance she'd fallen into.

Shaking her head to clear it, she dropped the bloodstained pillowcase, stood, and quickly backed away from the still unconscious form of the imposter until the back of her legs hit the metal of the bed.

Heart pounding so loud she could hardly hear anything else, she somehow managed to force her suddenly locked limbs into motion and shakily pulled herself up and onto the bed.

Wrapping her arms protectively around herself, Kara pressed herself against the metal headboard of the bed and curled her knees to her chest, trying to pull herself into as small a ball as possible.

The footsteps seemed agonizingly slow as they drew ever closer.

A twitch of movement out of the corner of her eye, and her eyes darted to track it just in time to see the Helo-imposter blink open his eyes. He immediately shut them again and lifted a hand to his head, obviously in pain. He pulled it away again and opened his eyes to see that his palm was stained crimson. Impossibly, her terror rocketed up another notch when he turned to look at her, an expression of confusion on his face. "Wha…?"

Her vision was blurring around the edges, and her chest was burning. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was hyperventilating.

A moment later, the curtain was pulled open.

For a moment, no one moved.

Forcing her eyes away from the still dazed ones staring back at her out of the mask of her friend's face, Kara caught the barest flash of a white lab coat before her eyes slammed shut of their own accord, not wanting to see the Four and Eight she knew were standing there. Clamping her hands over her ears so she wouldn't have to hear their voices, she pressed her forehead against her knees and struggled for force her suddenly mute voice to form words.

But muffled sounds and the _knowledge_ that the Cylons were moving around her was enough to cut off all thoughts of speaking.

It was like she was in a nightmare. No matter how hard she tried to speak, to _apologize_, because otherwise they'd be angry and if they were angry they'd_ hook her up to machines _just like they'd wanted to do on the Farm so long ago, her voice wouldn't come.

She'd broken all the other rules, but not this one. _Never_ this one. She _couldn't_.

Suddenly, insanely, she wished Leoben were there. He'd understand that she was sorry. He'd stop them. He'd bring her back to their apartment, where at least she'd have the illusion of safety to hide behind. And she'd be with Kacey.

Anywhere was better than this hellhole.

Anywhere but another Farm.

Because that's what it was.

That's why they'd brought in the imposter. They thought they could use Helo to convince her to submit to whatever new tests they'd come up with to 'be fruitful'.

Hadn't they proved that back on Caprica? _Hadn't they proved that back on Caprica?!_

Her thoughts spiraled in circles, bashing themselves like hapless doves against the glass walls separating her from the world around her. Anything to distract her from the monsters standing a bare few feet away.

But it was getting harder and harder to think past the lightheadedness that was growing. She was still breathing too quickly, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't calm down enough to stop herself from hyperventilating.

She wished Leoben were there.

Then a hand closed about her wrist, and rage swept the horror away, and she forgot once again why she wasn't supposed to fight back.

And as she launched herself out of her curled position and opened her eyes, she had just enough time to realize that it was Leoben standing infront of her before the familiar darkness stole in to take her place, and she faded into the back of her mind to wait out the violence that was about to unfold.

Because there was nothing she could do about the punishment that followed when she killed them. She would bear those scars forever.

But that didn't mean she had to be there to witness their deaths.

She would allow herself this escape.

Because sometimes Adama's rescue seemed like it would never come.

* * *

When the numbness finally started to recede from her mind, she found herself once again lying in the hospital bed, this time with what felt like leather cuffs restraining her wrists and ankles to the bed.

As soon as that realization hit, the world around her disappeared, and she was back at the Farm on Caprica, reliving the nightmare she'd had because of the drugs Simon had given her. Sam stood to one side of her bed, and Helo on the other, their hands locked around her wrists in a bone-crushingly tight grip. Horror seemed to have an equally strong hold on her throat. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. Couldn't scream for them to let go of her.

And just as the nightmare Helo leaned in to whisper in her ear, she flinched away, and the memory shattered.

With a shuddering gasp, she fought to pull air into her starved lungs, her vision reduced to blurred splotches of color with the tears that had welled up behind her eyes. Yanking desperately against the restraints that bound her wrists, she blinked rapidly, struggling to bring her vision back into focus so she could figure out how much danger she was in.

Just as she was about to give into the urge to scream her terror and fear and desperation to the sky, someone leaned over her, and she jerked back into the pillow, clenching her eyes so tightly shut that flashes of color exploded behind them. The darkness from before was swift in its return, lulling her gently into its protective embrace, allowing her shelter from the twisted and never ending nightmare her life had become.

She was about to relinquish her grip on the world entirely when a voice, low and soothing, washed over her. And though she couldn't untangle the exact words from the web of exhaustion and fear that lay heavily over her like a suffocating blanket, their meaning was clear. Slowly, the darkness loosened its hold until she could make out the words.

"…safe, Kara, no one's going to hurt you. It's alright. It…it's me, Kara…can…can you hear me? I promise no one's going to hurt you. Please, believe me. I won't let anyone hurt you again. Please just wake up…"

Still clinging to the darkness, her thoughts sluggishly struggled to make sense of what the voice was telling her.

Then she stilled.

No. Not the voice.

Sam. It was Sam's voice.

Sam…Sam was there.

Releasing her hold on the darkness completely, feeling flooded back into her body, and her senses expanded out and around her, painting a blurry mental picture of her surroundings on the back of her eyelids.

The smell of disinfectants that she'd grown to hate. The light warmth of a blanket spread over her. Dim red-grey where the light shone through her closed eyes. The alien feel of a hospital gown against her skin where once there had been her familiar jacket and sweats. The feeling of being watched.

Slowly, she dared to open her eyes. Movement to her left drew them in that direction, and she froze, staring.

Her ears hadn't been playing tricks on her. It was Sam. Her husband. Her Sammy, watching her with both concern and joy in his eyes. It was really him. She'd know him anywhere.

He was there, and…and…

And…

And…

Her mind drew a blank.

"S-Sam…?" She finally whispered, unable to comprehend what was happening.

"Yeah," He said softly, "It's me. I'm so glad you're alright." He smiled, and it was a smile so full of worry and relief and entirely his own that at the sight of it, her fears suddenly seemed distant and unable to reach her.

Tears suddenly burned in her eyes, and she tried to wipe them with the back of her hand.

Only for the restraints jerk her hand to a stop after not even an inch.

The momentary peace brought about by Sam's presence shattered completely, and panic erupted once more.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Her words came out as a frantic, panic-choked whisper, and adrenaline tore through her veins at the same time that a bone deep exhaustion threatened to pull her under, filling her head with the drum-like pounding of her heart so that the world around her almost seemed to disappear.

Then Sam was moving closer to her, and some distant part of her realized that he was trying to help, trying to calm her down, but the rest of her screamed that it was _just like_ the nightmare, and it was all just too much.

Too many conflicting emotions, too much fear, too much happiness, too much exhaustion, too much confusion, too much _everything_.

Why couldn't it just end? It seemed that her entire life had been filled with one nightmare after the next. Her mother. The worlds ending. And now this. There had to be some way to break the cycle. She didn't know how much more of it she could take.

Suddenly, the constricting hold of the restraints disappeared from one of her hands, and she yanked it protectively to her chest, her heart still roaring in her ears, as she struggled to get into a sitting position with her other wrist still held down.

Suddenly aware of movement around her, she fought to bring her vision to focus, and struggled in panic to pull her arm away when Sam grabbed her wrist in a firm grip.

"S-stop!" She gasped in fear, her body wracked by uncontrollable shudders as the world around her shifted from the curtained in area to the sun-soaked walls of her room at the Farm, "L-let go of me! Let go!" She cried, desperate to escape.

Then Sam let go of her hand, and she instinctively pulled it toward her, her entire body filled with dread at the expected cut off of movement of the restraint.

She was both shocked and untellably relieved when she was able to pull her arm to her chest unhindered. A glance with wide eyes to Sam where he had backed off a few feet at her side proved that he now held the two cuffs in his hands, and that he was staring down at them, a look of such complete hatred on his face that she flinched away automatically.

He must have noticed, because looked up to meet her gaze, his features dissolving from that of loathing to genuine concern in an instant.

He wasn't angry at her, she realized with relief, even as shivers of fear still shook her body.

The sudden brush of something against her feet startled her so badly her heart, which had slowly started to ease off its mad sprint, leapt to her throat, and she stopped breathing completely for a moment as she closed her eyes. Then, after a time that was immeasurable in the state she was in had passed, the weight of the cuffs around her ankles, too, disappeared, and she was finally able to draw her knees up to her chest.

Letting out a shaky breath she wasn't sure how long she'd been holding, Kara felt her heart rate start to drop back down to normal as she hugged her legs, the feeling of control over her body once more restored.

Suddenly, a wave of calm washed over her, and, slowly, the shivers died away, and the panic she'd felt just moments ago disappeared completely, leaving her feeling almost empty as body-weary exhaustion settled over her once more.

How long had it been since she'd slept? _Really_ slept? Without fear?

She couldn't even remember.

Weakly lifting her head, she forced open eyes suddenly as heavy as lead, and tried to fix her blurring gaze on Sam, her mouth open to say something, anything, to break the silence that had fallen, and that was when she realized that they weren't alone.

Standing by her feet, watching her silently with caterpillar-brows furrowed as though in deep thought, was Cottle.

Beside him, looking older than she'd ever seen him, as though all the years were finally starting to weigh him down, was the Admiral.

And, standing only a foot away from her, was Leoben.

Her focus immediately latched onto him like a lifeline. Out of all the others in the room, he was the only one to make sense. She wasn't even going to _try_ to figure out what was going on. Maybe she was dreaming.

Something, though, was…off…about him.

He stood hesitantly, and something about his stance, the way he held himself half-turned away from her, as though ready to shy away at any second, the way his head was lowered, his eyes on the floor, and his hands almost nervously infront of him, it was almost like he was afraid of her.

Her confusion only escalated when she realized that his lip was split open and bloody, and a dried trail of blood from his nose proved that it had been bleeding not long ago. A dark shadow that was the beginning of a bruise had formed around one of his eyes.

As though he could sense her stare, his eyes flickered up to meet hers for the barest second. "I-I'm sorry." He said, his voice trembling, then in a rush, "I was trying to-to help, I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't know they'd put those things on you. I'm sorry!"

The other occupants of the room forgotten, Kara could only stare.

He wasn't making sense. Where had the bruises come from? His injuries? Had _she_ done that? Why hadn't he downloaded? He _never_ let her see the damage she'd caused. Even a single bruise had him disappearing from the apartment for the half hour or so it took to download into a new body. And…why was he acting like a scolded child? Had she somehow caused brain damage? Was that even _possible_? Cylons had no childhood. What could he have regressed to?

Then a sudden thought occurred to her like a lightning strike, and her gaze sharpened on him, something like anger suddenly weighing heavy in the back of her mind. Her eyes narrowed, she scanned him from head to foot, and the anger grew heavier and heavier in the back of her mind with everything she saw, like a beast with its lips twitching back to bare its teeth.

Finally, her eyes flashed back to his, and once again, the weight of her gaze dragged his reluctantly back to meet hers. He _cringed_.

"You're not Leoben." She said, flashing teeth hidden in the dangerous edge of her voice.

She hadn't noticed it before because they were almost _exactly_ the same. But this Two had an aura around him that was decidedly the opposite of the cold and calculated fanaticism of the Cylon that had held her captive for months.

He flinched back, his eyes lowering to the floor once more, and opened his mouth to speak, "I—"

"Kara...?" Not-Leoben's words were cut off as the Admiral spoke. Eyes widening, she turned her head to meet the clear blue gaze of the man that was, for all intents and purposes, her father.

She couldn't believe she'd forgotten about him. Eyes flickering warily between Not-Leoben and the three other men in the room, she noted that the three non-Cylons seemed to be completely ignoring the Two that most definitely was _not_ Leoben.

"W-where am I?" She finally asked, already having decided that she was probably dreaming. Or hallucinating. Had she finally gone insane?

"You're in sickbay," Adama said, his voice held low and calm, as though he were talking to a wounded animal that was liable to attack at the slightest hint of a threat, "On the _Galactica_. You're safe now, Kara, I promise."

Yep. She was definitely dreaming. No, more likely hallucinating. The Fours seemed to really enjoy injecting her with things.

What she wouldn't give for it to be real.

Scowling and wishing that one of the Fours would appear so that she could take her anger out on something, she swung her head back to look at the Two still waiting nervously at her side.

"Okay," She snapped, letting her anger leak into her voice, turning it into a snarl, "I can understand _them_ being here, but who the _frak _are you? Where the hell is Leoben?"

He opened his mouth to speak again, only to be interrupted once more, this time by a half-cut off sound from Sam. The Two shot an injured look at the other man, then ducked his head under her stern glare.

Barely repressing a growl when she saw that he wasn't going to talk until Sam had spoken, Kara turned back to her husband just as he shot a hesitant glance toward Cottle. Her eyes narrowed when Cottle gave the slightest nod in return.

"Kara," Sam said softly, glancing warily over at the Two, "You killed Leoben, remember? Back in the detention center. He…he's not here, Kara." Though he was obviously trying to keep his voice calm, his words wavered a bit at the end, betraying his agitation.

Kara had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Usually, her hallucinations were smarter than this. "No," she said truthfully, "I don't remember that. Be quiet for a second."

Turning back to the Two, her entire body radiating an angry intolerance for even the _hint_ of another interruption, she crossed her arms, and waited, her gaze shattered emerald shards that dared disobedience.

The Two met her gaze without flinching this time, though the bruise around his eye and the sorrow held therein seemed to tell all.

And then Socrata Thrace was standing over her, her face twisted in rage, the reek of alcohol heavy on her breath as she snarled abuse that lashed at her soul, her hand clenched into a tight fist, drawing back, her body twisting almost in slow motion, the entire world almost seeming to come to a half for that single split second it took for her world to crumple before the first blow connected.

She raised her arms to shield her face—

—and found herself staring at the Two, his face etched with sorrow and guilt and fear.

The sudden image of her holding him by the collar of his shirt, her fist drawn back to strike, slammed into her mind with the force of the blow she'd inflicted upon him, and she flinched, clenching her eyes shut against the painfully familiar terror she'd seen on his face. The barest flicker of hope in his eyes, the hope she'd felt every time her mother flew into a rage, and the same hope that had been crushed with every strike of her mother's fist against her body.

The hope that maybe this time, it would change. That maybe this time something would change. That maybe, just maybe…this time would be the last.

Back in the present once more, she no longer cared whether she was hallucinating or not.

Unfolding her legs and lowering her arms, she reached out faster than she thought possible and grabbed the Two's hand in hers. Before he could react or pull away, she tugged on his hand, and he allowed himself—because she knew she didn't have nearly enough strength to do so herself with the exhaustion weighing down her limbs—to be pulled down on the bed next to her.

Keeping his hand in hers—an unsettling sense of déjà vu swept through her at the thought—she turned to face him, and locked his gaze with her own.

Grey pools of hope and fear met emerald shards of sorrow and guilt.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, almost shocked to find tears sliding down her cheeks, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again, please, _please_," She whispered, her voice breaking, because so many times she had wished her mother to utter these exact words, only for them to be dashed across the rocks of her disappointment. "Forgive me."

Staring back at her as though a child—how had she _ever_ though him Leoben?—she saw the fear melt from his gaze, and the hope flare up like the comforting heat of a warm fire on a cold and endless night, until his eyes, too, were glistening with tears.

"Always." He whispered softly, a hesitant smile dawning on his lips.

The rest of the world forgotten, they sat facing each other, their hands clasped between them, his eyes shining with hope, and hers with a happiness she'd once thought unattainable.

"What is your name?" She whispered, curious and leaning toward him just the slightest, a smile in her voice and eyes and lips.

"My name…" He said softly back, his brows furrowing for a moment in thought, as if he hadn't yet decided, before his eyes lit up once more, and, with a childlike grin, he replied, "My name is Cerberus."

* * *

**Finished on 4/7/13, 11:53PM.**

**Well holy frak, guys.**

**Did I not warn you that I am insane?**

**1,637 words written **_**today**_**, 1,657 written **_**yesterday**_**, and **_**who knows**_** how many written the day before that! Yeesh! This story **_**did not want to end**_**!**

**Agh. Well. Any theories about what the frak is going on? I would very much love to hear them :D**

**Anyways, I must be off to bed now—please, excuse my formal choice of words, I just spent the last…6? Hours switching between writing this, and sneaking glances at the living room TV where Sherlock was playing because my twin wanted to watch it. (The Woman and the Hound, if anyone's wondering)—for it is practically midnight, and all this watching of TV's making me sleepy. **

**Good night! Or morning, depending on where you are! ^_^**

**PS: Now that this is _finally_ posted, I'll be able to get some more work done of my DW/BtVS crossover o.O Another story in this series can be expected in...say...IDK. It depends on how much I get done for Running o.O I haven't updated that in a month now! *Glances guiltily over in Running's direction***

**Anyways, nighty night! **

**And please review! It mean the world to me!**


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